Music

Daft Punk (y’know the French electronica duo with the really cool helmets) is streaming their anime movie Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem on their official Twitch channel right now.

Sharing music statistics online became a yearly tradition thanks to Spotify Wrapped. Now, Apple Music’s Replay feature is turning up the frequency with monthly breakdowns (after YouTube Music added seasonal updates in 2022) and will also note “milestones” for users, like the total number of minutes they spent listening to that one album. Users, of course, can share their music recaps online every month.

While Sony’s plan to kick off a new cinematic universe with Madame Web doesn’t seem like it will work out, the studio migt end up having much better luck with four new biopics about Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon, and George Harrison from director Sam Mendes.

Some things are universal.

The longer the TikTok / UMG battle drags on, the more I think UMG’s leverage increases. Talked about it on Today, Explained with my pal Sean Rameswaram — and Cory Doctorow also joined this episode, so it’s a fun one.

Beyoncé has new music out, and Verizon’s Super Bowl ad about the drop maybe crashing its cell network doesn’t feel like all that much of a stretch.

The NFL posted that Taylor Swift arrived at the Super Bowl to watch Travis Kelce play. Does that guarantee a third pillar of Swift-obsessed viewers will join those who want to know what happens in the game and those who just want to watch the commercials?

Just kidding, I’m obviously posting this because of the Vision Pro and Tim Cook content, spotted by 9to5Mac’s Chance Miller. But why is Cook hugging one of the members of EDM trio Major Lazer? Listen, these guys go way back.

Nintendo released an orchestral performance of music from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom yesterday in lieu of its canceled Tokyo Live 2024 event.

Spotify for Podcasters is changing, and according to some creators, not for the better.

After Nintendo cancelled it’s Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo event, the two concerts set to take place during the event — Zelda and Splatoon — were scheduled to be released later on YouTube. The first of those two concerts, Tears of the Kingdom, is now available and it starts strong.

WMG CEO Robert Kyncl -- who thinks you could pay more for Spotify-- revealed the record label will lay off 10 percent of its workforce, or 600 employees. It’s winding down the podcast division behind Rap Radar and Drink Champs, and IMGN Media. It’s also in an “exclusive process” to sell Uproxx and HipHopDX.

Late last year, Epic Games sold the company to Songtradr, and half the employees were laid off, but Bandcamp is still continuing its artist-supporting pandemic tradition.

The corporate home to Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish, and Drake is preparing to stop licensing its music to TikTok, due to disagreements over issues like artist compensation and AI, Variety reports.

Version 17.3 of the Shazam iOS app can now identify what track is playing while wearing wired or Bluetooth headphones — regardless if the song is being played aloud nearby, or directly on the device via apps like TikTok and YouTube. In-app song identification was already available, but only if the user wasn’t wearing headphones.

Jack Stratton took a break from laying down funky guitar riffs for his band, Vulfpeck, to don a dark turtleneck and pitch Apple on a plan to “take back the belt from Spotify” by moving to a 90 / 10 split for artists on Apple Music.

The sad news that Pitchfork is being folded into GQ means that its excellent features team is being laid off — a team that did some piercing work on how music is actually being made. Here’s a look at the companies that buy huge catalogs from legends and try and get them reworked into new tracks — and more.

Vince Staples is something of a renaissance man. He’s a rapper, an actor, and a lowkey, funny-ass comedian, but in the first trailer for Netflix’s The Vince Staples Show from executive producer Kenya Barris, Vince is really …just a dude trying to live, and get a little more culture in people’s diets.

By playing as the actual composer, Gustavo Santaolalla, in The Last of Us Part II Remastered’s guitar freeplay mode. The banjo is an option, too.

Apple Music has posted the trailer for its Super Bowl LVIII Halftime Show — and I have to say, it has gotten me pretty pumped for Usher’s performance.

Dance for me, Robot Kevin.

Singer Amy Winehouse’s story was as short and tragic as her music was utterly beautiful.